Wilsons solutions (effective or not) to preexisting problems did not create them. He did not invent plebiscites, arbitrarily drawn national borders (Prince Metternich a century earlier is usually given the latter honor) nor the various kulturkampfen they seek to mitigate without ever resolving. Such things do not admit quick easy solutions, else they would not be so deep and persistent. It IS true attempts at imposing democracy tend toward regimes like that of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak, but we should not mistake the symptom for the disease. It is certainly unfair to blame Wilson for independent native movements like Nassers and Ataturks, much less equally native parochial responses.

That said, I concur with The Shrikes basic assessment. Democracy is inherently Western, so inherently foreign elsewhere. It has gained little traction beyond Europe and her former colonies (notably excepting Japan, where Commodore Perrys gunboat diplomacy prompted pragmatic (generally) enthusiastic Western fetishism.)

Its acceptance is debatable even within the West; formal popular consensus is not synonymous with democracy, but requires respect for human rights and individual liberty to allow free elections and anything more than anarchic brutal mob rule. Even when popular consensus IS democratic our attempts to impose democracy do not always reflect that. We are not above forgetting that free elections are just that, or overturning those where majorities "vote wrong." Contemporary Iraq is a good example: When the constitutional convention we (i.e. the West) convened ignored prohibitions against a theocratic constitution and wrote one anyway, WE re-wrote THEIR constitution. What legitimacy is possible for "democracy" imposed from outside DESPITE majority opposition?

The only good news is removing Mubarak removed our fingerprints on Egypts woes, though convincing average Egyptians (or any Mideasterner) of that can be hard. According to Wikipedias article on Egypts current situation:

• The Muslim Brotherhood claims a US State Dept. memo authorized funding/arming anti-Morsi forces to destabilize Egypts government, yet

• Syrian officals call the Muslim Brotherhood a "tool of the US."

Western states have begun realizing choosing either side in the secular military vs. fundamentalist civilian conflict only earns the others lasting enmity, without improving anything, as recent statements by David Cameron and Barack Obama (among others) reflect. Each time we stick our hand in the Mideasts meatgrinder we draw back a bloody nub; hopefully we can resist both benevolent and mercenary temptations to volunteer for more of the same.

We SHOULD, because Salafism is as inherently Egyptian as democracy is Western, and only spread as it escalated in Egypt. Qutbs fundamentalist plot to assassinate Nasser led to his own torture and execution—which only prompted al Zawahiri to take up his banner and carry it throughout the Mideast, from whence it and he still murderously menace the world. Salafisms Wahhabi roots permit no more human rights than any other religious fundamentalism does, because it subordinates human rights (along with everything else) to religion. Secularism is, by definition, as incompatible with Mideastern fundamentalist Islam as with Midwestern fundamentalist Christianity. Both tend to view secularists and civil libertarians as malevolent—insurgent—threats to fundamentalism AND nationalism.

It DOES threaten them, too, if not maliciously, nor often even insurgently. Many NATIVE to brutal fundamentalist theocracy deplore it far more than we on the sidelines. Sadly, their frustration is born of being, well, born of it, and draconian theocracy is not ended by asking its large Church Militant nicely—especially when it violently resists all opposition as apostate invaders (or collaborators with them.) Secularists typically lack opportunity for democracys glorified debating societies, but frequently lack the reference frame also. Qutbs arrest, even execution, are understandable; the intervening torture is not: Except that is how things are done there. Thus the US formally declared Syria a state terror sponsor, then arrested a critical Canadian national at JFK and flew him to Syria for CIA "enhanced interrogation" illegal in the US.

That is all that is happening in Egypt: The latest of many rounds in a secular vs. religious conflict over an authoritarian regime both sides condone, if only subconsciously. Fundamentalists rightly invoke the legitimacy of electoral mandates and decry large scale arrest, imprisonment and torture of even peaceful critics—yet demonstrate no more respect for civil liberties when they have the upperhand. Secularists rightly dismiss the ballot box on the grounds genocide by majority consent remains genocide—yet preemptively, indiscriminately and viciously act against even suspected and potential instigators of it.

True, free, democracy has no dog in that fight, but the Mideast is manifestly not ready for democracy. To be brutally frank, few societies are; even most European and North American states have SOME officially sanctioned civil liberties abuses and (particularly in racial and/or religious debates) must often settle for simply choosing sides yet again, then mitigating resulting abuses. Given the track record, even now, of states that invented and pride themselves on democracy, it is hardly surprising states often viewing it as a destructive import fare even worse.